Next up – Shopping at Hongdae Market. Take the MRT from Line 4 Myeongdong station to Line 2 Hongik University station (Exit 6). During weekends, there are interesting markets set up at Hongdae Park e.g. flea market and art market.

Next up – Shopping at Ewha Market. Take a taxi from Hongdae Market to Ewha Market. Both markets are very near and the taxi fare is about S$4-5. While the ladies shop around Ehwa university, I eat – first stop: meat skewers. Takes 20 minutes to prepare from their raw form to tasty BBQ version

Next – popcorn chicken along the street leading to ehwa university; despite being deep fried, the meat tasted tender and not too oily! – Magic of Korean fried chicken!

Head back to Seoul for dinner if you are catching a NANTA performance at Seoul Myeongdong NANTA Theatre. One suggestion for dinner – Yoogane Chicken Galbi fried rice – must try when you are in Seoul

Egg on top of butter bread – a must try food street snack (1500 krw) when shopping in myeongdong – or post-theatre snack after NANTA.

Seoul Day 2 – Petite France, Nami Island and Dongdaemun Shopping

It is possible to take the MRT + commuter train to Nami Island and Petite France (both at the Gapyeong region). We booked a private driver (about 300 USD) – taking the public transport will be much much cheaper but you will need to coordinate the train and bus schedule and there will be quite some time spent travelling. This is what Nami Island is famous for – the lanes of trees on Nami Island made famous by the show “Winter Sonata”.

There is a statue which re-enacts a key scene from Winter Sonata. Here you find tourists posing in front of the Winter Sonata statues on Nami Island – they looked like they are strangling each other!

Visit Noryangjin Fish Market for the fresh seafood. Here you can buy live seafood from Level 1 – bargain hard for a good price (for the seafood itself + cooking and preparation fees). The seafood stalls works with the restaurants at Level 2 to cook and prepare your purchased seafood for youOne of the many seafood vendors in Noryangjin Fish Market – they will proudly show off their products!

Four abalones for about 10 usd at Noryangjin Fish Market – cooking is charged separately

Moving on to Gangnam from Noryangjin – At #seoul beauty belt – starting from Apgujeong train station, you see lots of before & after plastic surgery ads!

I have been reading your blogs for a few years and it has helped me plan a couple of trips. So thank you!

I just have a question about the transfer between Incheon and Gimpo. I saw from your itinerary that you opted for the train. From what I have heard, the station is quite far from the airport. Is it really the case? How long did it take you to walk from the bus stop to the airport? I’ll be travelling with my parents (68 up) and we will have 2 big suitcases with us. We have only 3 hours between our arrival time at Incheon and the departure time at Gimpo.

We had a 4 hour transit time and we even had time for a proper sit-down lunch at Gimpo airport before the flight.

The AREX station is quite far from the airport – I looked at the timestamp of my photos – from the time our plane touched down to the time we purchased our AREX train ticket at the train station – we took about an hour. Our customs clearance was quite ok – not much queue.

It took the train another 30-40 minutes to reach Gimpo station from the Incheon station – be sure to NOT take the Express train as that takes you direct to Seoul central (which is NOT what you want).

So from touchdown to reach Gimpo airport train station is about 1 hr 40 min – based on normal walking speed of a fit middle-aged adult – the oldest person in our group was abt 45 years old.

There is another walk from the Gimpo airport train station to the airport check-in desk – from our photo timestamp, it took us about 10 minutes but still this is normal walking speed so in total we took 1 hr 50 min from touchdown to checking in for our Jeju flight.

There are many other factors to consider e.g. whether there will be a long queue for customs clearance and how long it takes your baggage to arrive and whether there is train delay. For customs clearance, my tip to you is that you can try to see if you can go to the express clearance lane because you have elderly travelling with you but still no guaranteed – it depends on the mood of the customs officer that day.

Thank you so much for you post, it’s so easy to understand and really helpful.
I’m planning to visit Korea this February and i read at your post that in your second day in there you use a private driver with price around 300 usd to visit Nami island and petite France. I’m traveling with my parents and i think it’s better to use this kind of transportation. May i know the contact person of private driver that you used? and could you share how the booking process is?

We engaged this driver – Mr Jang Du Suk – his number is 010-8452-692 – he speaks basic English but it might be challenging for you to explain your preferred day tour. If possible, ask for an email address to confirm booking in writing. We arranged our tour through a Korean friend so it wasnt a problem.

Hi Jiayong – you will have to Facebook like the blog post and the link will be available to download. Sometimes when the site is busy, the page might be down – I just checked and it is available for download now. 🙂

Hi, your post it’s really useful & pack for me.
I’ll be going on March 2016. 5days plan off for Seoul 3days for Bushan.
May I know your suggestion any of each place it’s MUST GO attraction for you at Seoul ?
Thank you.

Hi, we are go to korea for 9 days. Can we help to plan for us the itinerary. I know that in seoul go shopping can take train but the seoul train station had a lot of staircase that my friends leg got problem cannot take it. So we intend to rent car, may I know is it cheap to rent a car at seoul.

You can download the itinerary from this blog post. Renting a car is about S$100+ a day but the expenses can add up with parking cost and fuel cost. Also driving in Seoul is not easy as there are a lot of traffic all the time. I suggest you just take taxis to go all around Seoul instead

Good Blog and here’s good deal for transfortation.
Arex Express train is the best way to access from the airport to Seoul station. It is fast(it takes only 43 mins to Seoul station) and clean. Plus, the price is also reasonable. It cost 8,000won and if you take one of these airline;Asiana,KAL,Jeju airline, you get some discount(6,900won). Arex Express train info desk is located between gate no.9 and no.8, desk no.45 on 1st floor in the airport.
T-money card is a prepaid public transportation card which means
you have to load some money on your T-money card before you use it
on subway,taxi or bus. And you can purchase a T-money card ata low price
if you head to Seoul station from Incheon airport. Find the Arex info.desk
on 1st floor at the airport. It located between gate #9 and #8, desk no.45.
They have a special promotion for foreigners; Express train ticket to Seoul station
+ T-money card it costs only 8,900 won. The regular price of
the express train ticket is 8,000 won and T-money card is 3,000 won.
So the promotion is a good deal.

may I know, how long did u spend at Nami Island and Petite France including travelling time? we are getting private trsf too due to parents. so want to plan the itinerary abit. how was the travel sequence like to Nami Island by private trsf?TIA!

We spent about 6 hours at both places. Our private transfer drove us to Nami Island ferry terminal where we took a ferry over (while driver waited in carpark) and then after that, drove to Petite France ad then back to Seoul

the key challenge is with taxi drivers – just write your destination in Korean (ask your hotel staff to write it) and you should be fine. Most shops and restaurants have price tags and menus in English.

Hi there, so nice writing about traveling to Korea. I hope my information will be helpful for you. In ICN, from travel center(located in B1), you can purchase some good and reasonable transportation pacakges. There are ‘express train and T-money card’, ‘express train and international taxi’ and ‘express train and EG sim card’. With express train, you can go to Seoul station with reserved convenient seat directly and express train will be the best and fastest options when you are going to Seoul area. And you can choose between other three options what you need. T-money card is transportation card in Korea and if you have many and heavy lugguges, I recommend you to take a second options(express train and taxi). Lastly, if you need a simcard, you can choose third option. If you are interested in these all, please visit to ‘travel center’. Thank you.

You should definitely buy online in advance – sometimes they have online promotion fare. The Seoul to Jeju flights are popular ones and you may not be able to get the timing you want if you buy on the spot.

Hi there, my fiancée and me Will be Gg Seoul on the 8 Nov but kinda stress right now cause I don’t know how to get from
One place to the next.

Like say from this mrt station, how do I get to this restaurant or cafe, using google
Map. Cause when I key in the name of the restaurant or cafe, no results.. also the address for the restaurant and cafe, I not sure how do I type in the google map app.

we didnt have a issue with google maps – usually the name of the restaurant or cafe can be found (if it is well known). alternatively go to a tourist office and get a physical map and ask for help from the staff to mark it in your map.

your itinerary sounds good. just explore ewha and myeongdong for shopping on day 1 – keep day 1 light to rest from your early flight arrival.
move your nanta theatre to day 1 or else day 6 might be too cramped for you unless your nanta performance is early afternoon.

Hi, can you help organized my above itinerary On day 4: starting from myengdong station which destination to visit first and last in order to avoid riding back and forth.(coexmall, leum Samsung museum, Gangnam, dongdaemun. Not interested in shopping, I’m more of taking pictures. Should I drop coexmall and Samsung museum? Any recommendation.
Day 3: visiting nami, petite France and Seoul tower.
Day 6: do last minute shopping in myeongdong and lotte mart.